Found by Jesus, and Finding Jesus (C. H. Spurgeon, 1834 -1892)

 

John 1:43-45

“The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me.

Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

For a soul to come to Jesus, is the grandest event in its history. It is 
spiritually dead till that day; but it then begins to live, and a saved 
man may reckon his age from the time in which he first knew the 
Lord. That day of first knowing Christ is important in the highest 
degree, because it affects all the man's past career; it sheds another 
light on all the years that have gone by If he has lived in sin, as no 
doubt he has, the transaction of that day blots out all the sin. The day 
in which a man comes to Christ, that very day his transgressions and 
iniquities are blotted out, even as the thick clouds are driven from the 
sky when God's strong wind chases them away. Is not that a grand day 
in which our sins are cast into the depths of the sea so that henceforth 
it can be said of them, "They may be sought for, but they shall not be 
found; yea, they shall not be, saith the Lord"? I say that the day in 
which a soul comes into contact with Christ is the greatest day of its 
history, because all the past is changed by it; and as for the present, 
what a different life does a man begin to live on the day in which he 
finds the Lord! He commences to live in the light instead of being 
dead in the darkness; he begins to enjoy the privileges of liberty, 
instead of suffering the horrors of slavery; he is started on the way to 
heaven, instead of continuing on the road to hell. He is such a new 
creature that he cannot tell how changed he is. One said to me, "Sir, 
the change in me is of this kind; either the whole world is altered, or 
else I am." So is it when we are brought to know Christ; it is a real, 
total, radical change. With many, it is a most joyous alteration; they 
feel like the man who had been lame, and who, when Peter spoke to 
him in the name of Jesus, and lifted him up, so that his feet and ankle 
bones received strength, was not satisfied with walking, for we read, 
"He leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the 
temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God." He was walking, and 
leaping, and praising God; do you wonder at it? If you had lost the use 
of your legs for a while, you would feel like leaping and praising God 
when you had them all right again; and thus is it with a soul when it 
first finds the Saviour. Oh! happy, happy day, when the miraculous 
hand of Christ takes away the infirmities of the soul, and makes the 
lame man to leap as a hart, and causes the tongue of the dumb to sing!

The day in which a man comes to Christ is also a wonderful day in its 
effect upon all his future. It is as when the helm of a ship is put right 
about; the man now sails in a totally different direction. His future will 
never be what his past was. There may be faults; there may be 
infirmities and shortcomings; but there will never be the old love of 
sin any more. "Sin shall not have dominion over you." This is God's 
own promise to us, given through his servant Paul. When Christ 
comes to our soul, he so breaks the neck of sin, that though it lives a 
struggling, dying life, and often makes a deal of howling in the heart, 
yet it is doomed to die. The cross of Christ has broken its back, and 
broken its neck, too, and die it must. Henceforth the man is bound for 
holiness, and bound for heaven.

Now, dear friends, have any of you come to Christ? I know that you 
have, the great mass of you, and I bless God, and so do you, that it is 
so with you; but if there are any of you who have never come to the 
Saviour, I wish that this might be the night when you should find him. 
I am but a poor lame preacher; you are not often troubled with the 
sight of one sitting down and preaching; yet I think that if I had lost 
my legs, and had always to lie on my back, I would like even then to 
preach Christ crucified, and to--

                          "Tell to sinners round,
                    What a dear Saviour I have found."

I do pray that some of you to-night, made to think all the more by the 
infirmity of the preacher, may be led to seek and to find the Saviour, 
and then it shall be a happy day indeed for you, as it has been for so 
many more.

I am going to talk to you about Philip's conversion, and first, I ask you 
to notice, in our text, the convert's description of it: "Philip findeth 
Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses 
in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of 
Joseph." That is Philip's description of it: "We have found Jesus." It 
was a true description, but it was not all the truth; so, in the second 
place, we will notice the Holy Spirit's description of it: "The day 
following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip." 
Philip's account of the incident is that he found Christ; but the Holy 
Spirit's record of it is that Christ found Philip. They are both true, 
however; although the latter is the fuller. We will talk a little about 
both descriptions of Philip's conversion.

I. First then, THE CONVERT'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS COMING TO CHRIST is given in 
these words, "We have found...Jesus," and what he says is perfectly true.

If any one of you is saved, it will be by finding Christ, by your 
personally making a discovery of him, as that man did who found the 
treasure that was hid in the field. There must be a search after Christ; 
but if there be a search after him, we may be certain of this one thing, 
that there will first be a consciousness of needing him.

Philip had sought Christ, or else he would never have said that he had 
found him; but, before that, Philip knew that there was need of a 
Messiah. When he looked round about on the world, and on the 
church, he said to himself, "Oh, that the promised Messiah would 
come! There is great need of him. The people need him, the church 
needs him, the world needs him." When Philip looked into his own 
heart, he said, "Oh, for the coming of the Messiah! I feel that I want 
him; I have urgent need of him." Dear hearer, do you feel that you 
need a Saviour? You never will seek him until you do feel your need of 
him. You must recognize that there is sin in you, sin for which you 
cannot make atonement, sin that you cannot overcome. You must 
realize that you need another and a stronger arm than your own, that 
you need divine help, that you need One who can be your Brother, to 
sympathize with you, and be patient with you, and yet who can be the 
Mighty God to conquer all your sin for you. You do need a Saviour; 
that is the first thing that will prompt you to search for him.

Wanting a Messiah, Philip read the Scriptures concerning him. He 
speaks about Moses and the prophets, and of what they had written 
concerning the promised Deliverer. O my dear hearers, if you want to 
find Christ, you must search the Scriptures, for they testify of him! Oh, 
that you did search the Scriptures more, with the definite object of 
finding the Saviour! Probably, the great majority of unconverted 
people never read their Bibles at all; or they read only just enough to 
satisfy their curiosity, or their conscience. Perhaps they read the Bible 
as a part of literature which cannot be quite ignored; but they do not 
take down the Holy Book, and read it carefully and prayerfully, saying, 
"Oh, that I might find holiness here! Oh, that I might find Christ 
here!" If they did, it would not be long before they found Jesus. Well 
does Dr. Watts sing,--

                   "Laden with guilt, and full of fears,
                          I fly to thee, my Lord,
                     And not a glimpse of hope appears
                         But in thy written Word.
                      The volume of my Father's grace
                        Does all my griefs assuage;
                      Here I behold my Saviour's face
                          Almost in every page."

He who reads the Bible with the view of finding Christ, will not be 
long before some passage of Scripture will seem to leap up, to attract 
his attention, as though it were set on fire, and then it will speak to 
him of Jesus, whispering to him of the great sacrifice on Calvary, and 
speaking to his heart of divine love and mercy. Philip was a searcher 
after Christ in the place where Christ loves to be,--in the pages of 
Scripture,--and you must be the same if you desire to find Jesus.

But then Philip also gave himself to prayer. We are not told so, but we 
feel sure of it. He asked the Lord to reveal Christ to him, to guide him 
to where the Christ would be, to let him know the Christ. Oh, if you 
want to be saved, be much in prayer! I do not mean merely saying 
prayers; what is the good of that? I do not mean simply saying fine 
words of your own, merely for the sake of uttering them. Prayer is 
communing with God; it is asking the Lord for what you really feel 
that you need. What waggon-loads of sham prayers are shot down at 
God's door, as if they were so much rubbish thrown away! Let it not be 
so with your prayers; but speak to the Lord out of your very soul when 
you come to the throne of grace. I cannot give you a better prayer than 
the one we have been singing,--

                    "Gracious Lord, incline Thine ear,
                      My requests vouchsafe to hear;
                        Hear my never-ceasing cry;
                      Give me Christ, or else I die.
                      "Lord, deny me what Thou wilt,
                         Only ease me of my guilt;
                       Suppliant at Thy feet I lie,
                      Give me Christ, or else I die.
                     "Thou dost freely save the lost!
                        Only in Thy grace I trust:
                       With my earnest suit comply;
                      Give me Christ, or else I die.
                      "Thou hast promised to forgive
                        All who in Thy Son believe;
                     Lord, I know Thou canst not lie;
                      Give me Christ, or else I die."
                                       
With the open Bible before you to guide your understanding, kneel 
down, and say, "O God, graciously reveal Christ to me by thy Holy 
Spirit; bring me to know him, bring me this day to find him as my 
own Saviour!"

It is certain, also, that Philip realized that he might claim the Messiah 
for himself. One of the things that every man, who would find the 
Saviour, must do, is to make sure of his right to come and take the 
Saviour. The question that puzzles many is, "May I have the Saviour?" 
My dear friends, every sinner in the world is permitted to come and 
trust the Saviour, if he wills to do so. "Whosoever will, let him take 
the water of life freely." "But," asks some troubled soul, "will Christ 
have me?" That is not the question; the question is, "Will you have 
Christ?" He says, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." It 
is you who cast out the Saviour, not the Saviour who casts you out. 
The bolt to the door is on the inside; it is you who have bolted it, and it 
is you who must undo the bolt, and invite the Saviour to enter your 
heart. He is willing enough to come in; wherever there is a soul that 
wants him, he comes at once; therefore, do not raise any quibbling 
questions about whether a sinner may come to Christ, or may not 
come. Is he not bidden to come? We are told to preach the gospel to 
every creature, and he who gave us our great commission also added, 
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth 
not shall be damned."

Philip accepted Christ as the Messiah. Do you ask, "What am I to do 
that I may find the Saviour?" Well, what you have to do is practically 
this, accept him. If you were sick, and the doctor stood before you, 
with the medicine ready prepared, you would not say, "What am I to 
do with this medicine, sir? Am I to rub my hand on the outside of the 
bottle?" You know very well that there are certain directions as to how 
much is to be taken, and how often. What you have to do with the 
medicine is to take it. "But I cannot make that medicine work for my 
restoration." Who said you could? All you have to do is to take it. It is 
just this that you have to do with Christ; take him, accept him, receive 
him. Remember the twelfth verse of this chapter out of which our text 
is taken: "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become 
the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." That is it, you 
see, receive him, believe on his name. "But surely I am to do some 
good works." Certainly, you will do good works after you have 
received Christ; but for your soul's salvation, you are to do no good 
works, but simply to receive Christ. "Oh, but I must lead a holy life!" 
Yes, and you will lead a holy life after you have received Christ; but in 
order to the leading of a holy life you must have a new heart, and to 
get a new heart, you have to receive Christ. He will change you, he 
will renew you, he will make you a new creature in himself. What you 
have to do is to receive him, and to believe on his name. O my dear 
hearers, I do trust that I am speaking to some this evening who will 
understand what I am saying. I fear that I am addressing many who 
will not believe, though I may put the truth as plainly as it can be 
preached. You know that you may hold a candle right against a blind 
man's eyes, and yet he will not see even then. The Holy Spirit must 
open your eyes to see what is meant by this receiving Christ, or else 
you will not understand what you are to do. You are not to give 
anything to Christ; you are to take all from him. You are not to give 
anything to Christ; you are to take all from him. You are not to bring 
anything to Christ; you are to come to him just as you are, and he will 
bring to you everything that you need. Then, when you have accepted 
him by the simple act of faith, you will say with Philip, "We have 
found Jesus." That is the convert's description, and a very good one, 
too: "We have found Jesus."

II. But now, secondly, what is THE HOLY GHOST'S DESCRIPTION? 
I will read to you the very words again; here they are: "The day 
following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip." Jesus 
finds Philip before Philip finds Jesus; Philip finds Jesus because Jesus 
has found Philip.

Now, notice, that this is the previous work; it came before Philip's own 
finding. Jesus would go forth into Galilee to find Philip. Dear friends, 
I recollect very well that, after I had found the Lord, I did not at first 
fully understand the doctrines of grace. I had heard them preached; but 
I had not comprehended them. I think at the time I should have been 
very much puzzled with the doctrine of election, if anybody had 
spoken to me about it; but I was sitting down, one day, gratefully 
reflecting on what God had done for me. I knew that my sins were 
pardoned, I knew that I was accepted in Christ Jesus, and I knew that I 
was renewed in heart, and in one moment the revelation came to me, 
"All this is the work of God." The instant I saw that truth, I said to 
myself, "Yes, that is the fact, and God be glorified for it! But why has 
this great work been wrought in me?" I knew that there was no merit 
in me before the Lord had dealt in mercy with my soul, so I said to 
myself, "This is the effect of sovereign distinguishing grace." Then I 
understood in a moment how it is that God begins with us, and that it 
is God's will and God's eternal purpose, which, after all, lie deeper 
down than our will or our purpose; and God's will and God's eternal 
purpose must have the glory. What a revelation it was to me! I saw the 
doctrines of grace immediately; and I think that anybody who has been 
brought to find the Saviour, and who prayerfully studies the reasons 
for his salvation, can see the same truth that the Lord revealed to me. 
Because, first of all, you began to be thoughtful, did you not? Who 
made you thoughtful? You would never have found the Savour if you 
had not become thoughtful instead of careless and indifferent. Who 
made you think of divine things? What influence was it which 
wrought upon you, and caused you to feel that you must think about 
eternity, and heaven, and hell? Surely it was God the Holy Ghost 
going forth, in the name of Jesus Christ, and dealing with you in 
mercy.

Then you had a sense of your need and of your sinfulness. There was a 
time when you had no such sense; then, who gave it to you? Where do 
you think that repentance, that sorrow for sin, that desire after Christ, 
came from? Did all that grow in your own fallen human nature? Ah, 
believe me, that dunghill never brought forth such fair flowers as 
these! No, it was Christ who sowed the good seed in your soul; it was 
he who made you feel your need of him.

Next, when you read the Bible, you understood it. You perceived that 
Jesus was the only Saviour of sinners, you saw his fitness to meet your 
case, and you understood the plan of salvation. Who made you 
understand it? I know that it is plain enough for a child to 
comprehend; but no one ever does understand spiritual things except 
by the operation of the Spirit of God. It was the Holy Spirit who gave 
you the spiritual power by which you were able to grasp the simple 
truth concerning the way of salvation.

Then you began to pray. I have spoken of that matter already. But who 
taught you to pray? You had not been accustomed to real prayer; you 
had often had great mouthfuls of words, that was all; but now you 
began to cry, "God be merciful to me, a sinner!" Oh, the groaning of 
your spirit, and the anguish of your heart, as you cried to God! Who 
gave you that anguish? Who broke you all to pieces, and made every 
broken bone cry out for mercy? Who, indeed, but Christ who wrought 
mightily in your soul by the power of the Holy Spirit?

And when you yielded yourself up to Christ, when you believed in 
Jesus, and found salvation, where did that faith come from? Is it not 
always the work of the Spirit of God? Is not faith the gift of God, and 
do you not confess that it is so in your case? Once, when I was a little 
child, I thought I saw a needle moving across the table; and I should 
have been wondering who made the needle march as it did, but I was 
old enough to understand that somebody was moving a magnet 
underneath the table, and the needle was following the magnet which I 
could not see. Thus the Lord, with his mighty magnet of grace, is often 
at work upon the hearts of men, and we think that their desire after 
God, and their faith in Christ, are of themselves. In a sense, the desire 
and the faith are their own; but there is a divine force that is at work 
upon them, producing these results. It is Jesus finding Philip, though 
Philip does not know it. Philip thinks that he is finding Jesus, but 
behind the veil it is Jesus finding Philip. This was the previous work.

And, dear friends, this was very delightful work for the Lord Jesus 
Christ. Notice how it is put: "The day following Jesus would go forth 
into Galilee, and findeth Philip." O my blessed Lord, how he will go 
forth to find a soul! A journey is never too long for him, and he never 
wastes a day. "The day following Jesus would go forth, and findeth 
Philip." Oh, may my Lord delight to come forth, and find some of you! 
You are to-night in a place where he has found a good many; I pray 
that he may find some of you. Perhaps you do not know how it was 
that you came here. You did not mean to come out to-night; but here 
you are in this crowd, in the thick of this great throng. My Lord has 
found many a precious jewel here; to its own self it seemed nothing but 
a poor pebble, but to him it was a diamond of the first water. O my 
Master, find some more of thy jewels to-night! Lord Jesus, come and 
find Philip, and find Mary, and then let Philip and Mary declare that 
they have found thee!

When our dear Master goes forth to find a soul, it is very effectual 
work. He said to Philip, "Follow me." I will gladly end my sermon just 
here if my Master will preach to some of you his two-worded sermon, 
"Follow me," "Follow me," "FOLLOW ME." "Come, poor soul, you do 
not know the way! 'Follow me.' You want some one to go before you, 
to be your leader. 'Follow me.' You want some one to be your shelter, 
your companion, your all. 'Follow me.'" That is what you have to do, 
good woman. You have been worrying about what you have heard 
from different preachers; Christ says to you, "Follow me." That is what 
you have to do, young man. You have been reading those rubbishing 
modern thought books till you do not know whether you are on your 
head or on your heels. Burn them. Jesus says, "Follow me." I know 
that some of you have been distracted with all sorts of silly talk; let 
that go to the dogs. Jesus says, "Follow me." The crucified Saviour 
says, "Follow me." Take him for your atonement. The risen Saviour 
says, "Follow me." Take him for your life. The Saviour on the throne 
says, "Follow me." Take him for your joy. The Saviour coming in 
glory hereafter says, "Follow me." Take him to be your hope. "Follow 
me," "Follow me," that is the text for to-night, and that is the sermon, 
too. Jesus said to Philip, "Follow me," and Philip followed him 
directly; and he not only followed Christ himself, but he began 
immediately to try to get others to follow him.

Please to notice also that Philip was found by Christ in a very different 
way from the other disciples. Two of them had been found through the 
teaching of John the Baptist; but Philip had apparently had no 
teaching. Another of the little company had been found through the 
private call of his brother; Philip may not have had any relative or 
friend to speak to him, but the Saviour just said to him, "Follow me," 
and he followed him. Dear friends, do not begin comparing your 
conversion with somebody else's. If the Lord Jesus Christ calls you, 
and says to you, "Follow me," and you follow him, if there never was 
another soul converted in exactly the same way, it does not matter at 
all. If you have come to him, if you have trusted in him, you are saved.

The pith of all that I have to say is this. Do not get worrying 
yourselves, as some of you do, about God's eternal purpose, and about 
the secret working of the Holy Spirit, and about how this can be 
consistent with your following Christ when he bids you. They are 
perfectly consistent. Some persons have asked me at times to reconcile 
these two things; and I have said to them, "Very well, tell me the 
difficulties, and I will reconcile them." It would be quite as easy to 
state them as to meet them, for in fact there are none. "Oh, but," says 
one, "you tell me to believe in Christ, and yet you constantly preach 
that faith is the work of the Spirit of God." I do. "And yet you say that 
men are to choose Christ?" I do. "Well, how do you reconcile those 
two things?" Show me that there is any difficulty about the two things, 
and then I will reconcile them. You imagine the difficulty, for there is 
none in reality, there does not exist any in practical life. I believe that 
God has predestinated whether I am going down to the Lord's supper 
at the close of this service; but I shall go down as well as my legs can 
carry me. "Oh!" say you, "you make it out to be a matter of your own 
free will?" Yes, I do. "And yet you believe it to be God's eternal 
purpose?" Yes, I do. "Well, then, reconcile the two things." Again I 
say that there is no difficulty in the case, there is nothing to be 
reconciled, for both statements are true. You might as well ask me to 
reconcile the land and the water, or to reconcile the dog star, Sirius, 
and a farthing rushlight. There is no quarrel between them, and I have 
no time to waste on needless argument. Come you to Christ; and if you 
do, it will be because the Holy Spirit draws you. If you find the 
Saviour, it will be because the Saviour first found you. Perhaps, in 
heaven, you may see some difficulties, and get them explained; down 
here, you need not see them, and you need not ask to have them 
explained. Salvation is all of God's grace, from first to last; yet is it 
true that the grace of God leads men to do what Moses did, according 
to our subject this morning,*--to make a choice and to choose rather to 
suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of 
sin for a season. God grant that you may make an equally wise choice!

I have done when I have said this one thing more. Philip, and Peter, 
and Andrew, were all of Bethsaida: "Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the 
city of Andrew and Peter." These three good men, these three apostles, 
were all of Bethsaida. That ought to be some comfort to many of you, 
my dear hearers, because there are numbers of you, who are here to-
night, who are of Bethsaida. Sitting all round me, I see people who, I 
believe, are of Bethsaida. "Oh!" say you, "we never were there in all 
our lives." Listen. Bethsaida was one of the places in which Christ had 
done many of his mighty works; and you remember that, when the 
people repented not, Jesus uttered over them that sad lamentation, 
"Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty 
works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they 
would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto 
you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of 
judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto 
heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which 
have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have 
remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more 
tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee."

Now, there are some of you here who have heard the gospel for many 
years, and have seen the power of the grace of God in your families, 
and it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, and for Sodom and 
Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than it will be for you, inasmuch as 
you have rejected the Saviour. But, as there were these three men, 
Philip, and Peter, and Andrew, who were of Bethsaida,--and I should 
think that the home of James and John was not very far off from the 
same place,--why should not you come to Christ? Why should not you 
become members of his Church, and, if it be the Lord's will, preachers 
of his Word? God grant that it may be so!

Oh, how I long in my soul for the salvation of every one of you! Many 
of you, who have come here to-night, are strangers to me. I trust that 
you will not be strangers to my Master. To-night, I pray you, here in 
the very heat of midsummer, ere yet the harvest shall be past, and the 
summer shall be ended, "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call 
ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the 
unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and 
he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly 
pardon." Receive Christ, trust in him. God grant that you may do so, 
for Jesu's sake! Amen.

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For Whom Did Christ Die? (C. H. Spurgeon, 1834 -1892)

 

Romans 5:6

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”

In this verse the human race is described as a sick man, whose disease 
is so far advanced that he is altogether without strength: no power 
remains in his system to throw off his mortal malady, nor does he 
desire to do so; he could not save himself from his disease if he would, 
and would not if he could. I have no doubt that the apostle had in his 
eye the description of the helpless infant given by the prophet Ezekiel; 
it was an infant--an infant newly born--an infant deserted by its 
mother before the necessary offices of tenderness had been performed; 
left unwashed, unclothed, unfed, a prey to certain death under the most 
painful circumstances, forlorn, abandoned, hopeless. Our race is like 
the nation of Israel, its whole head is sick, and its whole heart faint. 
Such, unconverted men, are you! Only there is this darker shade in 
your picture, that your condition is not only your calamity, but your 
fault. In other diseases men are grieved at their sickness, but this is the 
worst feature in your case, that you love the evil which is destroying 
you. In addition to the pity which your case demands, no little blame 
must be measured out to you: you are without will for that which is 
good, your "cannot" means "will not," your inability is not physical but 
moral, not that of the blind who cannot see for want of eyes, but of the 
willingly ignorant who refuse to look.

While man is in this condition Jesus interposes for his salvation. 
"When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the 
ungodly"; "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," according to 
"his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in 
trespasses and sins." The pith of my sermon will be an endeavour to 
declare that the reason of Christ's dying for us did not lie in our 
excellence; but where sin abounded grace did much more abound, for 
the persons for whom Jesus died were viewed by him as the reverse of 
good, and he came into the world to save those who are guilty before 
God, or, in the words of our text, "Christ died for the ungodly."

Now to our business. We shall dwell first upon the fact--"Christ died 
for the ungodly"; then we shall consider the fair inferences therefrom; 
and, thirdly, proceed to think and speak of the proclamation of this 
simple but wondrous truth.

First, here is THE FACT--"Christ died for the ungodly." Never did the 
human ear listen to a more astounding and yet cheering truth. Angels 
desire to look into it, and if men were wise they would ponder it night 
and day. Jesus, the Son of God, himself God over all, the infinitely 
glorious One, Creator of heaven and earth, out of love to me stooped to 
become a man and die. Christ, the thrice holy God, the pure-hearted 
man, in whom there was no sin and could be none, espoused the cause 
of the wicked. Jesus, whose doctrine makes deadly war on sin, whose 
Spirit is the destroyer of evil, whose whole self abhors iniquity, whose 
second advent will prove his indignation against transgression, yet 
undertook the cause of the impious, and even unto death pursued their 
salvation. The Christ of God, though he had no part or lot in the fall 
and the sin which has arisen out of it, has died to redeem us from its 
penalty, and, like the psalmist, he can cry, "Then I restored that which 
I took not away." Let all holy beings judge whether this is not the 
miracle of miracles!

Christ, the name given to our Lord, is an expressive word; it means 
"Anointed One," and indicates that he was sent upon a divine errand, 
commissioned by supreme authority. The Lord Jehovah said of old, "I 
have laid help upon one that is mighty, I have exalted one chosen out 
of the people"; and again, "I have given him as a covenant to the 
people, a leader and commander to the people." Jesus was both set 
apart to this work, and qualified for it by the anointing of the Holy 
Ghost. He is no unauthorised saviour, no amateur deliverer, but an 
ambassador clothed with unbounded power from the great King, a 
Redeemer with full credentials from the Father. It is this ordained and 
appointed Saviour who has "died for the ungodly." Remember this, ye 
ungodly! Consider well who it was that came to lay down his life for 
such as you are.

The text says Christ died. He did a great deal besides dying, but the 
crowning act of his career of love for the ungodly, and that which 
rendered all the rest available to them, was his death for them. He 
actually gave up the ghost, not in fiction, but in fact. He laid down his 
life for us, breathing out his soul, even as other men do when they 
expire. That it might be indisputably clear that he was really dead, his 
heart was pierced with the soldier's spear, and forthwith came there 
out blood and water. The Roman governor would not have allowed the 
body to be removed from the cross had he not been duly certified that 
Jesus was indeed dead. His relatives and friends who wrapped him in 
linen and laid him in Joseph's tomb, were sorrowfully sure that all that 
lay before them was a corpse. The Christ really died, and in saying 
that, we mean that he suffered all the pangs incident to death; only he 
endured much more and worse, for his was a death of peculiar pain 
and shame, and was not only attended by the forsaking of man, but by 
the departure of his God. That cry, "My God, my God! why hast thou 
forsaken me?" was the innermost blackness of the thick darkness of 
death.

Our Lord's death was penal, inflicted upon him by divine justice; and 
rightly so, for on him lay our iniquities, and therefore on him must lay 
the suffering. "It pleased the Father to bruise him; he hath put him to 
grief." He died under circumstances which made his death most 
terrible. Condemned to a felon's gibbet, he was crucified amid a mob 
of jesters, with few sympathising eyes to gaze upon him; he bore the 
gaze of malice and the glance of scorn; he was hooted and jeered by a 
ribald throng, who were cruelly inventive in their taunts and 
blasphemies. There he hung, bleeding from many wounds, exposed to 
the sun, burning with fever, and devoured with thirst, under every 
circumstance of contumely, pain, and utter wretchedness; his death 
was of all deaths the most deadly death, and emphatically "Christ 
died."

But the pith of the text comes here, that "Christ died for the ungodly"; 
not for the righteous, not for the reverent and devout, but for the 
ungodly. Look at the original word, and you will find that it has the 
meaning of "impious, irreligious, and wicked." Our translation is by 
no means too strong, but scarcely expressive enough. To be ungodly, 
or godless, is to be in a dreadful state, but as use has softened the 
expression, perhaps you will see the sense more clearly if I read it, 
"Christ died for the impious," for those who have no reverence for 
God. Christ died for the godless, who, having cast off God, cast off 
with him all love for that which is right. I do not know a word that 
could more fitly describe the most irreligious of mankind than the 
original word in this place, and I believe it is used on purpose by the 
Spirit of God to convey to us the truth, which we are always slow to 
receive, that Christ did not die because men were good, or would be 
good, but died for them as ungodly--or, in other words, "he came to 
seek and to save that which was lost."

Observe, then, that when the Son of God determined to die for men, he 
viewed them as ungodly, and far from God by wicked works. In 
casting his eye over our race he did not say, "Here and there I see 
spirits of nobler mould, pure, truthful, truth-seeking, brave, 
disinterested, and just; and therefore, because of these choice ones, I 
will die for this fallen race." No; but looking on them all, he whose 
judgment is infallible returned this verdict, "They are all gone out of 
the way; they are together become unprofitable; there is none that 
doeth good, no, not one." Putting them down at that estimate, and 
nothing better, Christ died for them. He did not please himself with 
some rosy dream of a superior race yet to come, when the age of iron 
should give place to the age of gold,--some halcyon period of human 
development, in which civilisation would banish crime, and wisdom 
would conduct man back to God. Full well he knew that, left to itself, 
the world would grow worse and worse, and that by its very wisdom it 
would darken its own eyes. It was not because a golden age would 
come by natural progress, but just because such a thing was 
impossible, unless he died to procure it, that Jesus died for a race 
which, apart from him, could only develop into deeper damnation. 
Jesus viewed us as we really were, not as our pride fancies us to be; he 
saw us to be without God, enemies of our own Creator, dead in 
trespasses and sins, corrupt, and set on mischief, and even in our 
occasional cry for good, searching for it with blinded judgment and 
prejudiced heart, so that we put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. He 
saw that in us was no good thing, but every possible evil, so that we 
were lost,--utterly, helplessly, hopelessly lost apart from him: yet 
viewing us as in that graceless and Godless plight and condition, he 
died for us.

I would have you remember that the view under which Jesus beheld us 
was not only the true one, but, for us, the kindly one; because had it 
been written that Christ died for the better sort, then each troubled 
spirit would have inferred "he died not for me." Had the merit of his 
death been the perquisite of honesty, where would have been the dying 
thief? If of chastity, where the woman that loved much? If of 
courageous fidelity, how would it have fared with the apostles, for they 
all forsook him and fled? There are times when the bravest man 
trembles lest he should be found a coward, the most disinterested frets 
about the selfishness of his heart, and the most pure is staggered by his 
own impurity; where, then, would have been hope for one of us, if the 
gospel had been only another form of law, and the benefits of the cross 
had been reserved as the rewards of virtue? The gospel does not come 
to us as a premium for virtue, but it presents us with forgiveness for 
sin. It is not a reward for health, but a medicine for sickness. 
Therefore, to meet all cases, it puts us down at our worst, and, like the 
good Samaritan with the wounded traveller, it comes to us where we 
are. "Christ died for the impious" is a great net which takes in even the 
leviathan sinner; and of all the creeping sinners innumerable which 
swarm the sea of sin, there is not one kind which this great net does 
not encompass.

Let us note well that in this condition lay the need of our race that 
Christ should die. I do not see how it could have been written "Christ 
died for the good." To what end for the good? Why need they his 
death? If men are perfect, does God need to be reconciled to them? 
Was he ever opposed to holy beings? Impossible! On the other hand, 
were the good ever the enemies of God? If such there be are they not of 
necessity his friends? If man be by nature just with God, to what end 
should the Saviour die? "The just for the unjust" I can understand; but 
the "just dying for the just" were a double injustice--an injustice that 
the just should be punished at all, and another injustice that the just 
should be punished for them. Oh no! If Christ died, it must be because 
there was a penalty to be paid for sin committed, hence he must have 
died for those who had committed the sin. If Christ died, it must have 
been because "a fountain filled with blood" was necessary for the 
cleansing away of heinous stains; hence, it must have been for those 
who are defiled. Suppose there should be found anywhere in this world 
an unfallen man--perfectly innocent of all actual sin, and free from any 
tendency to it, there would be a superfluity of cruelty in the crucifixion 
of the innocent Christ for such an individual. What need has he that 
Christ should die for him, when he has in his own innocence the right 
to live? If there be found beneath the copes of heaven an individual 
who, notwithstanding some former slips and flaws, can yet, by future 
diligence, completely justify himself before God, then it is clear that 
there is no need for Christ to die for him. I would not insult him by 
telling him that Christ died for him, for he would reply to me, "Why 
should he? Cannot I make myself just without him?" In the very nature 
of things it must be so, that if Christ Jesus dies he must die for the 
ungodly. Such agonies as his would not have been endured had there 
not been a cause, and what cause could there have been but sin?

Some have said that Jesus died as our example; but that is not 
altogether true. Christ's death is not absolutely an example for men, it 
was a march into a region of which he said, "Ye cannot follow me 
now." His life was our example, but not his death in all respects, for 
we are by no means bound to surrender ourselves voluntarily to our 
enemies as he did, but when persecuted in one city we are bidden to 
flee to another. To be willing to die for the truth is a most Christly 
thing, and in that Jesus is our example; but into the winepress which 
he trod it is not ours to enter, the voluntary element which was 
peculiar to his death renders it inimitable. He said, "I lay down my life 
of myself; no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself." One 
word of his would have delivered him from his foes; he had but to say 
"Begone!" and the Roman guards must have fled like chaff before the 
wind. He died because he willed to do so; of his own accord he yielded 
up his spirit to the Father. It must have been as an atonement for the 
guilty; it could not have been as an example, for no man is bound 
voluntarily to die. Both the dictates of nature, and the command of the 
law, require us to preserve our lives. "Thou shalt not kill" means 
"Thou shalt not voluntarily give up thine own life any more than take 
the life of another." Jesus stood in a special position, and therefore he 
died; but his example would have been complete enough without his 
death, had it not been for the peculiar office which he had undertaken. 
We may fairly conclude that Christ died for men who needed such a 
death; and, as the good did not need it for an example--and in fact it is 
not an example to them--he must have died for the ungodly.

The sum of our text is this--all the benefits resulting from the 
Redeemer's passion, and from all the works that followed upon it, are 
for those who by nature are ungodly. His gospel is that sinners 
believing in him are saved. His sacrifice has put away sin from all who 
trust him, and, therefore, it was offered for those who had sin upon 
them before. "He rose again for our justification," but certainly not for 
the justification of those who can be justified by their own works. He 
ascended on high, and we are told that he "received gifts for men, yea, 
for the rebellious also." He lives to intercede, and Isaiah tells us that 
"He made intercession for the transgressors." The aim of his death, 
resurrection, ascension, and eternal life, is towards the sinful sons of 
men. His death has brought pardon, but it cannot be pardon for those 
who have no sin--pardon is only for the guilty. He is exalted on high 
"to give repentance," but surely not to give repentance to those who 
have never sinned, and have nothing to repent of. Repentance and 
remission both imply previous guilt in those who receive them: unless, 
then, these gifts of the exalted Saviour are mere shams and 
superfluities, they must be meant for the really guilty. From his side 
there flowed out water as well as blood--the water is intended to 
cleanse polluted nature, then certainly not the nature of the sinless, but 
the nature of the impure; and so both blood and water flowed for 
sinners who need the double purification. To-day the Holy Spirit 
regenerates men as the result of the Redeemer's death; and who can be 
regenerated but those who need a new heart and a right spirit? To 
regenerate the already pure and innocent were ridiculous; regeneration 
is a work which creates life where there was formerly death, gives a 
heart of flesh to those whose hearts were originally stone, and implants 
the love of holiness where sin once had sole dominion. Conversion is 
also another gift, which comes through his death, but does he turn 
those whose faces are already in the right direction? It cannot be. He 
converts the sinner from the error of his ways, he turns the disobedient 
into the right way, he leads back the stray sheep to the fold. Adoption 
is another gift which comes to us by the cross. Does the Lord adopt 
those who are already his sons by nature? If children already, what 
room is there for adoption? No; but the grand act of divine love is that 
which takes those who are "children of wrath even as others," and by 
sovereign grace puts them among the children, and makes them "heirs 
of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ."

To-day I see the Good Shepherd in all the energy of his mighty love, 
going forth into the dreadful wilderness. For whom is he gone forth? 
For the ninety and nine who feed at home? No, but into the desert his 
love sends him, over hill and dale, to seek the one lost sheep which 
has gone astray. Behold, I see him arousing his church, like a good 
housewife, to cleanse her house. With the besom of the law she 
sweeps, and with the candle of the word she searches, and what for? 
For those bright new coined pieces fresh from the mint, which glitter 
safely in her purse? Assuredly not, but for that lost piece which has 
rolled away into the dust, and lies hidden in the dark corner. And lo! 
grandest of all visions! I see the Eternal Father, himself, in the infinity 
of his love, going forth in haste to meet a returning child. And whom 
does he go to meet? The elder brother returning from the field, 
bringing his sheaves with him? An Esau, who has brought him 
savoury meat such as his soul loveth? A Joseph whose godly life has 
made him lord over all Egypt? Nay, the Father leaves his home to 
meet a returning prodigal, who has companied with harlots, and 
grovelled among swine, who comes back to him in disgraceful rags, 
and disgusting filthiness! It is on a sinner's neck that the Father weeps; 
it is on a guilty cheek that he sets his kisses; it is for an unworthy one 
that the fatted calf is killed, and the best robe is worn, and the house is 
made merry with music and with dancing. Yes, tell it, and let it ring 
round earth and heaven, Christ died for the ungodly. Mercy seeks the 
guilty, grace has to do with the impious, the irreligious and the 
wicked. The physician has not come to heal the healthy, but to heal the 
sick. The great philanthropist has not come to bless the rich and the 
great, but the captive and the prisoner. He puts down the mighty from 
their seats, for he is a stern leveller, but he has come to lift the beggar 
from the dunghill, and to set him among princes, even the princes of 
his people. Sing ye, then, with the holy Virgin, and let your song be 
loud and sweet,--"He hath filled the hungry with good things, but the 
rich he hath sent empty away." "This is a faithful saying, and worthy 
of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save 
sinners." "He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God 
by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." O ye 
guilty ones, believe in him and live.

II. Let us now consider THE PLAIN INFERENCES FROM THIS 
FACT. Let me have your hearts as well as your ears, especially those 
of you who are not yet saved, for I desire you to be blessed by the 
truths uttered; and oh, may the Spirit of God cause it to be so. It is 
clear that those of you who are ungodly--and if you are unconverted 
you are that--are in great danger. Jesus would not interpose his life 
and bear the bloody sweat and crown of thorns, and nails, and spear, 
and scorn unmitigated, and death itself, if there were not solemn need 
and imminent peril. There is danger, solemn danger, for you. You are 
under the wrath of God already, and you will soon die, and then, as 
surely as you live, you will be lost, and lost forever; as certain as the 
righteous will enter into everlasting life, you will be driven into 
everlasting punishment. The cross is the danger signal to you, it warns 
you that if God spared not his only Son, he will not spare you. It is the 
lighthouse set on the rocks of sin to warn you that swift and sure 
destruction awaits you if you continue to rebel against the Lord. Hell is 
an awful place, or Jesus had not needed to suffer such infinite agonies 
to save us from it.

It is also fairly to be inferred that out of this danger only Christ can 
deliver the ungodly, and he only through his death. If a less price than 
that of the life of the Son of God could have redeemed men, he would 
have been spared. When a country is at war, and you see a mother give 
up her only boy to fight her country's battles--her only well-beloved, 
blameless son--you know that the battle must be raging very fiercely, 
and that the country is in stern danger: for, if she could find a 
substitute for him, though she gave all her wealth, she would lavish it 
freely to spare her darling. If she were certain that in his heart a bullet 
would find its target, she must have strong love for her country, and 
her country must be in dire necessity ere she would bid him go. If, 
then, "God spared not his Son, but freely delivered him up for us all," 
there must have been a dread necessity for it. It must have stood thus: 
die he, or the sinner must, or justice must; and since justice could not, 
and the Father desired that the sinner should not, then Christ must; 
and so he did. Oh, miracle of love! I tell you, sinners, you cannot help 
yourselves, nor can all the priests of Rome or Oxford help you, let 
them perform their antics as they may; Jesus alone can save, and that 
only by his death. There on the bloody tree hangs all man's hope; if 
you enter heaven it must be by force of the incarnate God's bleeding 
out his life for you. You are in such peril that only the pierced hand 
can lift you out of it. Look to him, at once, I pray you, ere the proud 
waters go over your soul.

Then let it be noticed--and this is the point I want constantly to keep 
before your view--that Jesus died out of pure pity. He must have died 
out of the most gratuitous benevolence to the undeserving, because the 
character of those for whom he died could not have attracted him, but 
must have been repulsive to his holy soul. The impious, the godless--
can Christ love these for their character? No, he loved them 
notwithstanding their offences, loved them as creatures fallen and 
miserable, loved them according to the multitude of his loving-
kindnesses and tender mercies, from pity, and not from admiration. 
Viewing them as ungodly, yet he loved them. This is extraordinary 
love! I do not wonder that some persons are loved by others, for they 
wear a potent charm in their countenances, their ways are winsome, 
and their characters charm you into affection; "but God commendeth 
his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for 
us." He looked at us, and there was not a solitary beauty spot upon us: 
we were covered with "wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores," 
distortions, defilements, and pollutions; and yet, for all that, Jesus 
loved us. He loved us because he would love us; because his heart was 
full of pity, and he could not let us perish. Pity moved him to seek the 
most needy objects that his love might display its utmost ability in 
lifting men from the lowest degradation, and putting them in the 
highest position of holiness and honour.

Observe another inference. If Christ died for the ungodly, this fact 
leaves the ungodly no excuse if they do not come to him, and believe 
in him unto salvation. Had it been otherwise they might have pleaded, 
"We are not fit to come." But you are ungodly, and Christ died for the 
ungodly, why not for you? I hear the reply, "But I have been so very 
vile." Yes, you have been impious, but your sin is not worse than this 
word ungodly will compass. Christ died for those who were wicked, 
thoroughly wicked. The Greek word is so expressive that it must take 
in your case, however wrongly you have acted. "But I cannot believe 
that Christ died for such as I am," says one. Then, sir, mark! I hold 
you to your words, and charge you with contradicting the Eternal God 
to his teeth, and making him a liar. Your statement gives God the lie. 
The Lord declares that "Christ died for the ungodly," and you say he 
did not, what is that but to make God a liar? How can you expect 
mercy if you persist in such proud unbelief? Believe the divine 
revelation. Close in at once with the gospel. Forsake your sins and 
believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall surely live. The fact that 
Christ died for the ungodly renders self-righteousness a folly. Why 
need a man pretend that he is good if "Christ died for the ungodly?" 
We have an orphanage, and the qualification for our orphanage is that 
the child for whom admission is sought shall be utterly destitute. I will 
suppose a widow trying to show to me and my fellow trustees that her 
boy is a fitting object for the charity; will she tell us that her child has 
a rich uncle? Will she enlarge upon her own capacities for earning a 
living? Why, this would be to argue against herself, and she is much 
too wise for that, I warrant you, for she knows that any such 
statements would damage rather than serve her cause. So, sinner, do 
not pretend to be righteous, do not dream that you are better than 
others, for that is to argue against yourself. Prove that you are not by 
nature ungodly, and you prove yourself to be one for whom Jesus did 
not die. Jesus comes to make the ungodly godly, and the sinful holy, 
but the raw material upon which he works is described in the text not 
by its goodness but by its badness; it is for the ungodly that Jesus died. 
"Oh, but if I felt!" Felt what? Felt something which would make you 
better? Then you would not so clearly come under the description here 
given. If you are destitute of good feelings, and thoughts, and hopes, 
and emotions, you are ungodly, and "Christ died for the ungodly." 
Believe in him and you shall be saved from that ungodliness.

"Well," cries out some Pharisaic moralist, "this is dangerous doctrine." 
How so? Would it be dangerous doctrine to say that physicians 
exercise their skill to cure sick people and not healthy ones? Would 
that encourage sickness? Would that discourage health? You know 
better; you know that to inform the sick of a physician who can heal 
them is one of the best means for promoting their cure. If ungodly and 
impious men would take heart and run to the Saviour, and by him 
become cured of impiety and ungodliness, would not that be a good 
thing? Jesus has come to make the ungodly godly, the impious pious, 
the wicked obedient, and the dishonest upright. He has not come to 
save them in their sins, but from their sins; and this is the best of news 
for those who are diseased with sin. Self-righteousness is a folly, and 
despair is a crime, since Christ died for the ungodly. None are 
excluded hence but those who do themselves exclude; this great gate is 
set so wide open that the very worst of men may enter, and you, dear 
hearer, may enter now.

I think it is also very evident from our text that when they are saved, 
the converted find no ground of boasting; for when their hearts are 
renewed and made to love God they cannot say, "See how good I am," 
because they were not so by nature; they were ungodly, and, as such, 
Christ died for them. Whatever goodness there may be in them after 
conversion they ascribe it to the grace of God, since by nature they 
were alienated from God, and far removed from righteousness. If the 
truth of natural depravity be but known and felt, free grace must be 
believed in, and then all glorying is at an end.

This will also keep the saved ones from thinking lightly of sin. If God 
had forgiven sinners without an atonement they might have thought 
little of transgression, but now that pardon comes to them through the 
bitter griefs of their Redeemer they cannot but see it to be an exceeding 
great evil. When we look to Jesus dying on the cross we end our 
dalliance with sin, and utterly abhor the cause of so great suffering to 
so dear a Saviour. Every wound of Jesus is an argument against sin. 
We never know the full evil of our iniquities till we see what it cost the 
Redeemer to put them away.

Salvation by the death of Christ is the strongest conceivable promoter 
of all the things which are pure, honest, lovely, and of good report. It 
makes sin so loathsome that the saved one cannot take up even its 
name without dread. "I will take away the name of Baali out of thy 
mouth." He looks upon it as we should regard a knife rusted with gore, 
wherewith some villain had killed our mother, our wife, or child. 
Could we play with it? Could we bear it about our persons or endure it 
in our sight? No, accursed thing! stained with the heart's blood of my 
beloved, I would fain fling thee into the bottomless abyss! Sin is that 
dagger which stabbed the Saviour's heart, and henceforth it must be 
the abomination of every man who has been redeemed by the atoning 
sacrifice.

To close this point. Christ's death for the ungodly is the grandest 
argument to make the ungodly love him when they are saved. To love 
Christ is the mainspring of obedience in men--how shall men be led to 
love him? If you would grow love, you must sow love. Go, then; and 
let men know the love of Christ to sinners, and they will, by grace, be 
moved to love him in return. No doubt all of us require to know the 
threatenings of the wrath of God; but that which soonest touches my 
heart is Christ's free love to an unworthy one like myself. When my 
sins seem blackest to me, and yet I know that through Christ's death I 
am forgiven, this blest assurance melts me down.

                    "If thou hadst bid thy thunders roll,
                   And lightnings flash, to blast my soul.
                         I still had stubborn been;
                       But mercy has my heart subdued,
                      A bleeding Saviour I have view'd,
                           And now I hate my sin."

I have heard of a soldier who had been put in prison for drunkenness 
and insubordination several times and he had been also flogged, but 
nothing improved him. At last he was taken in the commission of 
another offence, and brought before the commanding officer, who said 
to him, "My man, I have tried everything in the martial code with you, 
except shooting you; you have been imprisoned and whipped, but 
nothing has changed you. I am determined to try something else with 
you. You have caused us a great deal of trouble and anxiety, and you 
seem resolved to do so still; I shall, therefore, change my plans with 
you, and I shall neither fine you, flog you, nor imprison you; I will see 
what kindness will do, and therefore I fully and freely forgive you." 
The man burst into tears, for he reckoned on a round number of 
lashes, and had steeled himself to bear them, but when he found he 
was to be forgiven, and set free, he said, "Sir, you shall not have to 
find fault with me again." Mercy won his heart. Now, sinner, in that 
fashion God is dealing with you. Great sinners! Ungodly sinners! God 
says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your 
ways. I have threatened you, and you hardened your hearts against me. 
Therefore, come now, and let us reason together: though your sins be 
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like 
crimson, they shall be as wool." "Well," says one, "I am afraid if you 
talk to sinners so they will go and sin more and more." Yes, there are 
brutes everywhere, who can be so unnatural as to sin because grace 
abounds, but I bless God there is such a thing as the influence of love, 
and I am rejoiced that many feel the force of it, and yield to the 
conquering arms of amazing grace. The Spirit of God wins the day by 
such arguments as these; love is the great battering-ram which opens 
gates of brass. When the Lord says, "I have blotted out thy 
transgressions like a cloud, and like a thick cloud thine iniquities," 
then the man is moved to repentance.

I can tell you hundreds and thousands of cases in which this infinite 
love has done all the good that morality itself could ask to have done; 
it has changed the heart and turned the entire current of the man's 
nature from sin to righteousness. The sinner has believed, repented, 
turned from his evil ways, and become zealous for holiness. Looking 
to Jesus he has felt his sin forgiven, and he has started up a new man, 
to lead a new life. God grant it may be so this morning, and he shall 
have all the glory of it.

III. So now we must close--and this is the last point--THE 
PROCLAMATION OF THIS FACT, that "Christ died for the 
ungodly." I would not mind if I were condemned to live fifty years 
more, and never to be allowed to speak but these five words, if I might 
be allowed to utter them in the ear of every man, and woman, and 
child who lives. "CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY" is the best 
message that even angels could bring to men. In the proclamation of 
this the whole church ought to take its share. Those of us who can 
address thousands should be diligent to cry aloud--"Christ died for the 
ungodly"; but those of you who can speak to one, or write a letter to 
one, must keep on at this--"Christ died for the ungodly." Shout it out, 
or whisper it out; print it in capitals, or write it in a lady's hand--
"Christ died for the ungodly." Speak it solemnly, it is not a thing for 
jest. Speak it joyfully; it is not a theme for sorrow, but for joy. Speak it 
firmly; it is indisputable fact. Facts of science, as they call them, are 
always questioned: this is unquestionable. Speak it earnestly; for if 
there be any truth which ought to arouse all a man's soul it is this: 
"Christ died for the ungodly." Speak it where the ungodly live, and 
that is at your own house. Speak it also down in the dark corners of the 
city, in the haunts of debauchery, in the home of the thief, in the den 
to the depraved. Tell it in the gaol; and sit down at the dying bed and 
read in a tender whisper--"Christ died for the ungodly." When you 
pass the harlot in the street, do not give a toss with that proud head of 
yours, but remember that "Christ died for the ungodly"; and when you 
recollect those that injured you, say no bitter word, but hold your 
tongue, and remember "Christ died for the ungodly." Make this 
henceforth the message of your life--"Christ died for the ungodly."

And, oh, dear friends, you that are not saved, take care that you 
receive this message. Believe it. Go to God with this on your tongue--
"Lord save me, for Christ died for the ungodly, and I am of them." 
Fling yourself right on to this as a man commits himself to his lifebelt 
amid the surging billows. "But I do not feel," says one. Trust not your 
feelings if you do; but with no feelings and no hopes of your own, 
cling desperately to this, "Christ died for the ungodly." The 
transforming, elevating, spiritualising, moralising, sanctifying power 
of this great fact you shall soon know and be no more ungodly; but 
first, as ungodly, rest you on this, "Christ died for the ungodly." 
Accept this truth, my dear hearer, and you are saved. I do not mean 
merely that you will be pardoned, I do not mean that you will enter 
heaven, I mean much more; I mean that you will have a new heart; 
you will be saved from the love of sin, saved from drunkenness, saved 
from uncleanness, saved from blasphemy, saved from dishonesty. 
"Christ died for the ungodly"--if that be really known and trusted in, it 
will open in your soul new springs of living water which will cleanse 
the Augean stable of your nature, and make a temple of God of that 
which was before a den of thieves. Trust in the mercy of God through 
the death of Jesus Christ, and a new era in your life's history will at 
once commence.

Having put this as plainly as I know how, and having guarded my 
speech to prevent there being anything like a flowery sentence in it, 
having tried to put this as clearly as daylight itself,--that "Christ died 
for the ungodly," if your ears refuse the precious boons that come 
through the dying Christ, your blood be on your own heads, for there 
is no other way of salvation for any one among you. Whether you 
reject or accept this, I am clear. But oh! do not reject it, for it is your 
life. If the Son of God dies for sinners, and sinners reject his blood, 
they have committed the most heinous offence possible. I will not 
venture to affirm, but I do suggest that the devils in hell are not 
capable of so great a stretch of criminality as is involved in the 
rejection of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Here lies the highest love. The 
incarnate God bleeds to death to save men, and men hate God so much 
that they will not even have him as he dies to save them. They will not 
be reconciled to their Creator, though he stoops from his loftiness to 
the depths of woe in the person of his Son on their behalf. This is 
depravity indeed, and desperateness of rebellion. God grant you may 
not be guilty of it. There can be no fiercer flame of wrath than that 
which will break forth from love that has been trampled upon, when 
men have put from them eternal life, and done despite to the Lamb of 
God. "Oh," says one, "would God I could believe!" "Sir, what difficulty 
is there in it? Is it hard to believe the truth? Darest thou belie thy God? 
Art thou steeling thy heart to such desperateness that thou wilt call thy 
God a liar?" "No; I believe Christ died for the ungodly," says one, "but 
I want to know how to get the merit of that death applied to my own 
soul." Thou mayest, then, for here it is--"He that believeth in him," 
that is, he that trusts in him, "is not condemned." Here is the gospel 
and the whole of it--"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: 
he that believeth not shall be damned."

I am a poor weak man like yourselves, but my gospel is not weak; and 
it would be no stronger if one of "the mailed cherubim, or sworded 
seraphim" could take the platform and stand here instead of me. He 
could tell to you no better news. God, in condescension to your 
weakness, has chosen one of your fellow mortals to bear to you this 
message of infinite affection. Do not reject it! By your souls' value, by 
their immortality, by the hope of heaven and by the dread of hell, lay 
hold upon eternal life; and by the fear that this may be your last day on 
earth, yea, and this evening your last hour, I do beseech you now, 
"steal away to Jesus." There is life in a look at the crucified one; there 
is life at this moment for you. Look to him now and live. Amen.

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The Simplicity and Sublimity of Salvation (Charles H. Spurgeon, 1834 -1892)

 

John 1:11-13

“He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Everything here is simple; everything is sublime. Here is that simple 
gospel, by which the most ignorant may be saved. Here are profundities, 
in which the best-instructed may find themselves beyond their depth. 
Here are those everlasting hills of divine truth which man cannot climb; 
yet here is that plain path in which the wayfaring man, though a fool, 
need nor err, nor lose his way. I always feel that I have no time to spare 
for critical and captious persons. If they will not believe, neither shall 
they be established. They must take the consequences of their unbelief. 
But I can spare all day and all night for an anxious enquirer, for one who 
is blinded by the very blaze of the heavenly light that shines upon him, 
and who seems to lose his way by reason of the very plainness of the road 
that lies before him. In this most simple text are some of the deep things 
of God, and there are souls here that are puzzled by what are simplicities 
to some of us; and my one aim shall be, so to handle this text as to help 
and encourage and cheer some who would fain touch the hem of the 
Master's garment, but cannot for the press of many difficulties and grave 
questions which rise before their minds.

Let us go to the text at once, and notice, first, a matter which is very 
simple: "As many as received him . . . even to them that believe on his 
name"; secondly, a matter which is very delightful: "to them gave he 
power to become the sons of God"; and thirdly, a matter which is very 
mysterious: "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, 
nor of the will of man, but of God."

I. Here is, first, A MATTER WHICH IS VERY SIMPLE; receiving 
Christ, and believing on his name. Oh, that many here may be able to 
say, "Yes, I understand that simple matter. That is the way in which I 
found eternal life"!

The simple matter of which John here speaks is receiving Christ, or, in 
other words, believing on his name.

Receiving Christ is a distinctive act. "He came unto his own, and his 
own received him not." The very people you would have thought would 
have eagerly welcomed Christ did not do so; but here and there a man 
stood apart from the rest, or a woman came out from her surroundings, 
and each of these said, "I receive Christ as the Messiah." You will never 
go to heaven in a crowd. The crowd goes down the broad road to 
destruction; but the way which leadeth to life eternal is a narrow way; 
"and few there be that find it." They that go to heaven must come out one 
by one, and say to him that sits at the wicket-gate, "Set my name down, 
sir, as a pilgrim to the celestial city." They who would enter into life 
must fight as well as run, for it is an uphill fight all the way, and few 
there be that fight it out to the end, and win the crown of the victors.

Those who received Christ were different from those who did not receive 
him; they were as different as white is from black, or light from 
darkness. They took a distinctive step, separated themselves from others, 
and came out and received him whom others would not receive. Have 
you taken such a step, dear friend? Can you say, "Yes, let others do as 
they will, as for me, Christ is all my salvation, and all my desire; and at 
all hazards I am quite content to be counted singular, and to stand alone; 
I have lifted my hand to heaven, and I cannot draw back. Whatever 
others may do, I say, 'Christ for me'"?

As it was a distinctive act, so it was a personal one: "To as many as 
received him." They had to receive Christ each one by his own act and 
deed. "Even to them that believe on his name." Believing is the distinct 
act of a person. I cannot believe for you any more than you can believe 
for me; that is clearly impossible. There can be no such thing as 
sponsorship in receiving Christ, or in faith. If you are an unbeliever, 
your father and mother may be the most eminent saints, but their faith 
does not overlap and cover your unbelief. You must believe for yourself. 
I have had to even remind some that the Holy Ghost himself cannot 
believe for them. He works faith in you; but you have to believe. The 
faith must be your own distinct mental act. Faith is the gift of God; but 
God does not believe for us; how could he? It is for you distinctly to 
believe. Come, dear hearer, have you been trying to put up with a 
national faith? A national faith is a mere sham. Or have you tried to 
think that you possess the family faith? "Oh, we are all Christians, you 
know!" Yes, we are all hypocrites; that is what that comes to. Unless 
each one is a Christian for himself, he is a Christian only in name, and 
that is to be a hypocrite. Oh, that we might have the certainty that we 
have each one laid our sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God! God 
grant that, if we have never done so before, we may do so this very 
moment!

Mark, next, that, as it was a distinctive and personal act, so it related to 
a Person. I find that the text runs thus, "He came unto his own, and his 
own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he 
power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believe on his 
name." That religion which leaves out the person of Christ, has left out 
the essential point. Thou art not saved by believing a doctrine, though it 
is well for thee to believe it if it be true. Thou art not saved by 
practising an ordinance, though thou shouldst practise it if thou art one 
of those to whom it belongs. Thou art not saved by any belief except this, 
believing on Christ's name, and receiving him. "I take in a body of 
divinity," says one. Do you? There is no body of divinity that I know of 
but Christ, the son of God in human flesh, living, bleeding, dying, risen, 
ascended, soon to come; thou must lean on him; for the promise is only to 
as many as receive him.

This reception of Christ consisted in faith in him: "As many as received 
him . . . even to them that believe on his name." He was a stranger, and 
they took him in. He was food, and they took him in, and fed on him. He 
was living water, and they received him, drank him up, took him into 
themselves. He was light, and they received the light. He was life, and 
they received the life, and they lived by what they received. As the empty 
cup receives from the flowing fountain, so do we receive Christ into our 
emptiness. We, being poor, and naked, and miserable, come to him, and 
we receive riches, and clothing, and happiness in him. Salvation comes 
by receiving Christ. I know what you have been trying to do; you have 
been trying to give Christ something. Let me caution you against a very 
common expression. I hear converts continually told to give their hearts 
to Jesus. It is quite correct, and I hope they will do so; but your first 
concern must be, not what you give to Jesus, but what Jesus gives to you. 
You must take him from himself as a gift to you, then will you truly give 
your heart to him. The first act, and, indeed, the underlying act all the 
way along, is to receive, to imbibe, to take in Christ, and that is called 
believing on his name. Note that "name." It is not believing a fanciful 
christ; for there are many christs nowadays, as many christs as there are 
books, nearly; for every writer seems to make a christ of his own; but the 
christ that men make up will not save you. The only Christ who can save 
you is the Christ of God, that Christ who, in the synagogue at Nazareth, 
found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath 
sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, 
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are 
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."

You are to believe on the Christ as he is revealed in the Scriptures. You 
are to take him as you find him here; not as Renan, not as Strauss, or 
anybody else, pictures of him; but as you find him here. As God reveals 
him, you are to believe on his name: "the Wonderful, Counsellor, the 
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace"; Emmanuel, 
God with us; Jesus, saving from sin; Christ anointed of the Father. You 
are to believe on his name, not on the Christ of Rome, nor the Christ of 
Canterbury, but the Christ of Jerusalem, the Christ of the eternal glory; 
no christ of a dreamy prophecy, with which some are defaming the true 
prophetic spirit of the Word, no christ of idealism, no man-made christ; 
but the eternal God, incarnate in human flesh, as he is here pictured by 
Psalmist, Prophet, Evangelist, Apostle, very God of very God, yet truly 
man, in your stead suffering, bearing the sin of men in his own body on 
the tree. It is believing in this Christ that will effectually save your soul. 
To believe is to trust. Prove that you believe in Christ by risking 
everything upon him.

                       "Upon a life I did not live,
                        Upon a death I did not die,
                        I risk my whole eternity."

On his who lived for me, and died for me, and rose again for me, and 
has gone into heaven for me; on him I throw the whole weight of past, 
present, and future, and every interest that belongs to my soul, for time 
and for eternity.

This is a very simple matter, and I have noticed a great many sneers at 
this simple faith, and a great many depreciatory remarks concerning it; 
but, let me tell you, there is nothing like it under heaven. Possessing this 
faith will prove you to be a son of God; nothing short of it ever will. "To 
as many as received him, to them gave he power to become sons of 
God;" and he has given that power to nobody else. This will prove you to 
be absolved, forgiven. "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to 
them which are in Christ Jesus;" but if thou hast no faith in Christ Jesus, 
the wrath of God abideth on thee. Because thou hast not believed on the 
Son of God, thou art condemned already. One grain of this faith is worth 
more than a diamond the size of the world; yea, though thou shouldst 
thread such jewels together, as many as the stars of heaven for number, 
they would be worth nothing compared with the smallest atom of faith in 
Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God.

But whence comes this wonderful power of faith? Not from the faith, but 
from him on whom it leans. What power Christ has! The power of his 
manhood suffering, the power of his Godhead bowing on the cross, the 
power of the God-man, the Mediator, surrendering himself as the 
greatest sacrifice for sin; why, he who toucheth this, hath touched the 
springs of omnipotence! He who comes, by faith, into contact with 
Christ, has come into contact with boundless love, and power, and 
mercy, and grace. I marvel not at anything that faith brings when it deals 
with Christ. Thou hast a little key, a little rusty key, and thou sayest, 
"By use of this key I can get all the gold that I want." Yes, but where is 
the box to which you go for the gold? When you show me, and I see that it 
is a great chamber filled full of gold and silver, I can understand how 
your little key can enrich you when it opens the door into such a treasury. 
If faith be the key which unlocks the fulness of God, "for it pleased the 
Father that in him should all fulness dwell," then I can understand why 
faith brings such boundless blessings to him who hath it. Salvation is a 
very simple business. God help us to look at it simply and practically, 
and to receive Christ, and believe on his name!

II. Now, secondly, here is A MATTER WHICH IS VERY DELIGHTFUL: "To 
them gave he power to become sons of God." If I had a week to preach from 
this text, I think that I should be able to get through the first head; but 
at this time I can only throw out just a few hints. Look at the great and 
delightful blessing which comes to us by our faith in Christ. We give 
Christ our fsfaith, and he gives us power to become sons of God, the 
authority, liberty, privilege, right,--something more than mere strength or 
force--to be sons of God.

When we believe in Jesus, he indicates to us the Great Father's 
willingness to let us be his sons. We who were prodigals, far away from 
him, perceive that, when we receive Christ, the Father, who gave us 
Christ, is willing to take us to be his sons. He would not have yielded up 
his Only-begotten if he had not willed to take us into his family.

When we believe in Jesus, he bestows on us the status of sons. We were 
slaves before; now we are sons. We were strangers, aliens, enemies; and 
every word that means an evil thing might have been applied to us; but 
when we laid hold on Christ, we were adopted by some great citizen, and 
publicly acknowledged in the forum as being henceforth that man's son, 
was regarded as such, so, as soon as we believe in Jesus, we get the status 
of sons. "Beloved, now we are the sons of God."

Then Christ does something more for us. He gives us grace to feel our 
sonship. As we sang just now,--

                   "My faith shall 'Abba, Father,' cry,
                        And thou the kindred own."

God owns us as his children, and we own him as our Father; and henceforth, 
"Our Father, which art in heaven," is no meaningless expression, but it 
comes welling up from the depths of our heart.

Having given us grace to feel sonship, Christ gives us the nature of our 
Father. He gives us "power to become the sons of God." We get more 
and more like God in righteousness and true holiness. By his divine 
Spirit, shed abroad in our hearts, we become more and more the children 
of our Father who is in heaven, who doeth good to the undeserving and 
the unthankful, and whose heart overflows with love even to those who 
love not him.

When this nature of sons shall be fully developed, Christ will bestow his 
glory upon us. We shall be in heaven, not in the rear rank, as servants, 
but nearest to the eternal throne. Unto angels he has never said, "Ye are 
my sons"; but he has called us sons, poor creatures of the dust, who 
believe in Jesus; and we shall have all the honour, and joy, and privilege, 
and delight that belong to the princes of the blood royal of heaven, 
members of the imperial house of God, in that day when the King shall 
manifest himself in his own palace.

Some of us could draw parallels, about being made sons, from our own 
lives. You were once a very tiny child; but you were a son then as much 
as you are now. So is it with you who have only just begun to believe in 
Christ; he has given you authority and right to become sons of God. Very 
early in our life, our father went down to the registrar's office, and wrote 
our name in the roll as his sons. We do not recollect that, it was so long 
ago; but he did it, and he also wrote our name in the family Bible, even 
as our Father in heaven has enrolled our names in the Lamb's Book of 
Life. You recollect that, as a child, you did not go into the kitchen, to 
dine with the servants; but you took your seat at the table. It was a very 
little chair in which you first sat at the table; but as you grew bigger, 
you always went to the table, because you were a son. The servants in the 
house were much bigger than you, and they could do a great many things 
that you could not do, and your father paid them wages. He never paid 
you any; they were not his sons; but you were. If they had put on your 
clothes, they would not have been his sons. You had privileges that they 
had not. I remember that, in the parish where my home was, on a certain 
day in the year, the church-bell rang, and everybody went to receive a 
penny roll. Every child had one, and I recollect having mine. I claimed it 
as a privilege, because I was my father's son. I think there were six of us, 
who all had a roll; every child in the parish had one. So there are a 
number of privileges that come to us very early in our Christian life, and 
we mean to have them, first, because our Lord Jesus Christ has given us 
the right to have them; and, next, because, if we do not take what he 
bought for us,, it will be robbing him, and wasting his substance. As he 
has paid for it all, and has given us the right to have it, let us take it.

You were put to school because you were a son. You did not like it; I 
daresay that you would rather have stopped at home at play. And you 
had a touch of the rod, sometimes, because you were a son. That was one 
of your privileges: "for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" 
One day you were in the street with other boys, doing wrong, and your 
father came along, and punished you. He did not touch your companions, 
for they were not his sons. You smile at those little things, and you did 
not at the time count your punishments as privileges; but they were. 
When the chastening of the Lord comes, call it a privilege, for that is 
what it is. There is no greater mercy that I know of on earth than good 
health except it be sickness; and that has often been a greater mercy to 
me than health.

It is a good thing to be without a trouble; but it is a better thing to 
have a trouble, and know how to get grace enough to bear it. I am not so 
much afraid of the devil when he roars, as I am when he pretends to go to 
sleep. I think that, oftentimes, a roaring devil keeps us awake; and the 
troubles of this life stir us up to go to God in prayer, and that which 
looks to us ill turns to our good. "We know that all things work together 
for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his 
purpose."

III. Now I come to my last point, that is, A MATTER WHICH IS MYSTERIOUS. We 
are not only given the status of children, and the privilege of being 
called sons, but this mysterious matter is one of heavenly birth: "Which 
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of 
man, but of God."

This new birth is absolutely needful. If we are ever to be numbered amongst 
God's children, we must be born again, born from above. We were born in 
sin, born children of wrath, even as others; to be God's children, it is 
absolutely necessary that we should be born again.

The change wrought thereby is wonderfully radical. It is not a mere outside 
washing, nor any touching up and repairing. It is a total renovation. Born 
again? I cannot express to you all that the change means, it is so deep, so 
thorough, so complete.

It is also intensely mysterious. What must it be to be born again? "I 
cannot understand it." Says one. Nicodemus was a teacher in Israel, and 
he did not understand it. Does anybody understand it? Does anybody 
understand his first birth? What know we of it? And this second birth; 
some of us have passed through it, and know that we have, and 
remember well the pangs of that birth, yet we cannot describe the 
movements of the Spirit of God, by which we were formed anew, and 
made new creatures in Christ Jesus, according to that word from him 
who sits on the throne, "Behold, I make all things new!" It is a great 
mystery.

Certainly it is entirely superhuman. We cannot contribute to it. Man 
cannot make himself to be born again. His first birth is not of himself, 
and his second birth is not one jot more so. It is a work of the Holy 
Ghost, a work of God. It is a new creation; it is a quickening; it is a 
miracle from beginning to end.

Here is the point to which I call your special attention, it is assuredly 
ours. Many of us here have been born again. We know that we have, and 
herein lies the evidence of it, "As many as received him, to them gave he 
power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, 
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will 
of man, but of God." If thou believest on Christ's name, thou art born of 
God. If thou hast received Christ into thy soul, thou hast obtained that 
birth that comes not of blood, nor of the will of parents, nor of the will of 
man, but of God. Thou hast passed from death unto life.

Let no man sit down here, and cover his face, and say, "There is no hope 
for me. I cannot understand about this new birth." If thou wilt take 
Christ, to have and to hold, henceforth and for ever, as thy sole trust and 
confidence, thou hast received that which no line of ancestors could ever 
give thee; for it is "not of blood." Thou dost possess that which no will of 
the father and mother could ever give thee; for it is "not of the will of the 
flesh." Thou hast that which thine own will could not bring thee; for it is 
"not of the will of man." Thou hast that which only the Giver of life can 
bestow; for it is "of God." Thou art born again; for thou hast received 
Christ, and believed on his name. I do not urge you to look within, to try 
and see whether this new birth is there. Instead of looking within thyself, 
look thou to him who hangs on yonder cross, dying the Just for the 
unjust, to bring us to God. Fix thou thine eyes on him, and believe in 
him; and when thou seest in thyself much that is evil, look away to him; 
and when doubts prevail, look to him; and when thy conscience tells thee 
of thy past sins, look to him.

I have to go through this story almost every day of the year, and 
sometimes half a dozen times in a day. If there is a desponding soul 
anywhere within twenty miles, it will find me out, no matter whether I 
am at home, or at Mentone, or in any other part of the world. It will 
come from any distance, broken down, despairing, half insane 
sometimes; and I have no medicine to prescribe except "Christ, Christ, 
Christ; Jesus Christ and him crucified. Look away from yourselves, and 
trust in him." I go over and over and over with this, and never get one jot 
further. Because I find that this medicine cures all soul sicknesses, while 
human quackery cures none. Christ alone is the one remedy for sin-sick 
souls. Receive him; believe on his name. We keep hammering at this. I 
can sympathize with Luther when he said, "I have preached justification 
by faith so often, and I feel sometimes that you are so slow to receive it, 
that I could almost take the Bible, and bang it about your heads." I am 
afraid that the truth would not have entered their hearts if he had done 
so. This is what we aim at, to get this one thought into a man, "Thou art 
lost, and therefore such an one as Christ came to save."

One said to me just lately, "Oh, sir, I am the biggest sinner that ever 
lived!" I replied, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." "But 
I have not any strength." "While we were yet without strength, in due 
time Christ died." "Oh! But," he said, "I have been utterly ungodly." 
"Christ died for the ungodly." "But I am lost." "Yes," I said, "This is a 
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into 
the world to save sinners." "The Son of man has come to save that which 
was lost." I said to this man, "You have the brush in your hand, and at 
every stroke it looks as if you were quoting Scripture. You seem to be 
making yourself out to be the very man that Christ came to save. If you 
were to make yourself out to be good and excellent, I should give you 
this word--Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to 
repentance. He did not die for the good, but for the bad. He gave himself 
for our sins; he never gave himself for our righteousness. He is a 
Saviour. He has not come yet as a Rewarder of the righteous; that will be 
in his Second Advent. Now he comes as the great Forgiver of the guilty, 
and the only Saviour of the lost. Wilt thou come to him in that way?" 
"Oh! But," my friend said, "I have nothing to bring to Christ." "No," I 
said, "I know that you have not; but Christ has everything." "Sir," he 
said, "you do not know me, else you would not talk to me like this;" and 
I said, "No, and you do not know yourself, and you are worse than you 
think you are, though you think that you are bad enough in all 
conscience; but be you as bad as you may, Jesus Christ came on purpose 
to uplift from the dunghill those whom he sets among princes by his free, 
rich, sovereign grace."

Oh, come and believe in him, poor sinner! I feel that, if I had all your 
souls, I would believe in Christ for their salvation; I would trust him to 
save a million souls if I had them, for he is mighty to save. There can be 
no limit to his power to forgive. There can be no limit to the merit of his 
precious blood. There can be no boundary to the efficacy of his plea 
before the throne. Only trust him, and you must be saved. May his 
gracious Spirit lead you to do so now, for Christ's sake! Amen.

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The Sovereignty of God in Salvation (John Murray, 1898 -1975)

 

I. The sovereignty of God in salvation is in a unique way exemplified in God’s election of sinners to salvation. In the Old Testament, one of the most significant episodes is the revelation of the redemptive name Jehovah. There have been various attempts to interpret the precise meaning of this name. The older view that Jehovah expresses the self-determination, the independence, the sovereignty of God in the redemptive sphere, appears to be the most acceptable and tenable. The key to its meaning is found in the formula, “I am that I am” (Exod. 3:14). In all that God does for His people He is determined from within Himself. Paraphrased the formula would run, “What I am and what I shall be in relation to my people, I am and shall be in virtue of what I myself am. The explanation of my actions and relations, promises and purposes, is in myself, in my free self-determining will.” The correlate of this sovereignty in the choice and salvation of His people is the faithfulness and unchangeableness of God. He consistently pursues the determinations that proceed from Himself, and so His self-consistency insures stedfastness and persistence in His covenant promises and purposes. “For I am Jehovah, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Mat. 3:6).1 Perhaps the most plausible and subtle attempt to eliminate the sovereignty of God in the election of sinners to salvation is the interpretation that regards predestination as being based upon foreknowledge in the diluted sense of mere foresight. The classic passage in the argument is Romans 8:29, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren”. It is contended that the foreknowledge spoken of is God’s divine foresight of the sinner’s faith, or, more comprehensively, the divine foresight of the fulfilment on the part of men of the conditions of salvation. Those whom He foreknew, it is therefore said, are those whom he foresaw as certain to fulfil the conditions of salvation. It is thought that this removes the reason or cause for the discrimination that exists among men from the sovereign discrimination and fore-ordination on the part of God and attributes it to the sovereign volition on the part of man. This matter, of course, concerns the eternal decree of God. The question really is: what determines whether a man is predestined to salvation? Is it a sovereign act on the part of God? Or is it an exercise of will on the part of man? If predestination is made contingent upon the divine foresight of a voluntary decision on the part of man, then it is that action on the part of man that accounts for discriminating foreordination on the part of God. In such a case, the sovereignty of God in the election to salvation is eliminated at the crucial point. Predestination, then, is made to rest upon a condition fulfilled by man. Suppose that for the sake of the argument we were to adopt this diluted interpretation of the word “foreknow” in Romans 8:29, we are not too readily to conclude that the absolute sovereignty of God in the matter of election to salvation would be eliminated. If we say that the meaning of the verb “foreknow” in Romans 8:29 is “whom He foresaw as believing and persevering”, we are not to think that we have ended the matter. For we are compelled to ask the further question: whence this faith which God foresees? The answer which Scripture affords is that faith itself is the gift of God, not, of course, gift in some mechanical sense but gift in the sense of being graciously wrought in men by the operation and illumination of the Spirit (See e.g. John 3:3-8; 6:44, 45, 65; Eph. 2:8; Phil. 1:21). Since faith is thus given to some and not to others, and given to those who are equally unworthy with those to whom it is not given, the ultimate reason is that God is pleased thus to work in some and not in others. God’s foresight of faith, therefore, would presuppose an earlier decree on the part of God to work this faith in some and not in others. The foresight of faith would be preceded in God’s plan by His sovereign determination to give faith to them. And so, on a Biblical conception of the origin of faith, even foresight would throw us back on the sovereign determination of God to give faith. This interpretation, however, though really providing no escape from the sovereignty of God in the decree of salvation, is nevertheless not to be favoured, and that for the following reasons. (1) It is extremely unlikely that Paul in tracing our salvation to its source in the mind and will of God would have omitted reference to the first decree, namely, the decree to work faith. (2) According to the teaching of Scripture in general and of Paul in particular, faith is included in, or associated with, “calling”, and “calling” is in this very passage made the consequence of foreknowledge and predestination. It cannot be both the condition of predestination and the consequence of it. This consideration is confirmed by verse 28. “All things work together for good to them that love God, to those who are the called according to purpose”. If called according to purpose, the purpose is prior to the calling, and if faith is associated with calling, the purpose itself cannot be conditioned upon faith. (3) This interpretation is in conflict with what is said to be the purpose of predestination — conformity to the image of His Son. Conformity of this kind is surely meant to include every phase of likeness to Christ. Conformity to the image of the Son, no doubt, points to the ultimate perfection to which the elect will attain. If so, then the whole process by which that conformity is secured and realised must be in subordination to this purpose. In other words, the goal is surely prior, in the order of thought, to the process by which it is to be achieved. But the process by which the end is to be achieved includes faith and perseverance. Faith cannot, then, be the logical antecedent of predestination; it is rather that predestination is the logical antecedent of faith, even of faith as foreseen by God in His eternal counsel. That is just saying that faith follows, in the order of divine thought, upon the destined end of conformity to the image of the Son. But faith would have to precede predestination, if foreknowledge is the foreknowledge of faith. Faith therefore is two steps, in the order of divine thought, from foreknowledge, and two steps after not before, two steps in the order of consequence not of causation. (4) This interpretation that foreknowledge is the foresight of faith is not in accord with Paul’s teaching elsewhere, and particularly not with that one passage which more than any other expands the very subject in debate. It is Ephesians 1:3-14. (a) Paul there affirms that God chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him, in love having predestinated us unto adoption through Jesus Christ unto himself”. The elect are chosen to holiness; in the divine love they are predestinated to adoption. (b) This election and predestination are according to the good pleasure of His will and according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things according to the purpose of His own will. Paul, it is to be noted, piles up expressions almost to the point of what, on superficial reading, might be considered redundancy, in order to emphasise the sovereign determination of the divine will and purpose — “having been predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the purpose of his will” (vs. 11). To find the determinating factor of this predestination in a human decision would be to wreck the whole intent of Paul’s eloquent multiplication of terms. (c) The choice in Christ and the consequent union with Him is the foundation of all the blessings bestowed. It is in the Beloved we were abundantly favoured with grace (vs. 6); it is in Him we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace (vs. 7); the making known of the mystery of His will was purposed in Christ (vs. 9); it is in Him that all things in heaven and earth will be summed up (vs. 10); it is in Him we were given an inheritance (vs. 11); it is in Him that the Ephesians, when they had heard the word of truth and believed, were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (vss. 13, 14). It is obvious, therefore, that the very exercise by the Christian of believing and persevering grace, occurs in the sphere and on the basis, of union with Christ. Union with Christ, then, (which has its origin in God’s choice of the elect in Christ before the foundation of the world) must be regarded as the basis of believing and persevering grace received by believers. It follows, therefore, that belief in Christ and final perseverance foreseen by God in the elect, cannot be the conditioning cause of their election to salvation. If this interpretation of “foreknow” in Romans 8:29 is not acceptable what then, we may ask, is the meaning of foreknowledge? The answer, given repeatedly by the ablest of commentators, is not difficult to find. The word “know” in Hebrew and in Greek is used quite frequently in a pregnant sense, that is, with a fuller meaning than that of merely “perceiving”, or “taking cognisance of”, a fact. It often means to “take note of”, to “set regard upon”, to “know with peculiar interest, delight, affection and even action”. Indeed it is the practical synonym of to “love”, or “set affection upon”. The compound “foreknow”, as Sanday and Headlam observe, “throws back this `taking note’ from the historic act in time to the eternal counsel which it expresses and executes” (Com. Rom. 9:29). So we should paraphrase by saying, “Those whom He loved beforehand”. This pregnant meaning of the word is in accord with the context. In every other link of this “golden chain of salvation”, as it has been called, it is a divine activity that is spoken of. God is intensely active in every other step. It is God who predestinates; it is God who calls; it is God who justifies; it is God who glorifies. It would be out of accord with this emphasis, a weakening at the point that can least afford it, to make the originative act of God less active and determinative. The notion of foresight has distinctly less of the active and distinctly more of the passive than the emphasis of the whole passage’ appears to require. It is not a foresight of difference but a foreknowledge that makes difference to exist. It does not simply recognise existence; it determines existence. It expresses the volitional determinative counsel of God with reference to those who are the objects of it. It is sovereign distinguishing love. If this is the meaning the question may well be asked: what is the difference between foreknowledge and predestination in the text concerned? For, after all, some distinction there must be. The distinction is simple and significant. Foreknowledge is the setting of loving and knowing affection upon those concerned. It concentrates attention upon the love of God. But it does not of itself intimate the specific destiny to which the objects of love are appointed. That, in turn, predestination precisely does. It reveals to us the high and blessed destiny to which the objects of His distinguishing and peculiar love are assigned. And it reveals, in so doing, the greatness of His love. It is love of such a sort that it assigns them to conformity to the image of Him who is the eternal and only-begotten Son. When we ask the reason for the love that foreknowledge intimates, the greatness and security of which predestination expresses, we are uniquely confronted with the grandeur of the divine sovereignty. It is love that is according to the counsel of the divine will. The reason is enveloped in the mystery of His good pleasure. We are face to face with an ultimate of divine revelation and therefore with an ultimate of human thought. This love is not something that we can rationalise or analyse. We are in its presence, as nowhere else, overwhelmed with a sense of the divine sovereignty. We are struck with amazement. It is amazing inexplicable love. But to faith it is a reality that constrains the deepest and highest adoration. It is love the praise of which eternity will not exhaust. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:10). “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom. 11:33-36). II. The sovereignty of God is exemplified in regeneration by the Spirit. Nowhere is this truth so plainly and directly affirmed as in the two familiar passages in the Gospel of John (John 1:12, 13; John 3:3-8). The three negations of the former passage — “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man” — are cumulative in their effect, and the implication is that in the whole realm of nature there is no element, impulse, instinct, desire, volition or purpose, and no combination or collusion of these, that will produce “sons of God”. These negations are, however, followed by an affirmation that is placed in sharp antithesis to what is denied — “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”, The force of the affirmation is that the kind of birth that is to produce sons of God, that is to issue in the reception of Christ and abiding trust in His name, is birth from God. Of this birth God is the agent and God alone. The eloquent accumulation of negatives by which the affirmation is preceded excludes human determination and volition as in any way capable of effecting this supernatural result. It is not wrought by convergence of divine and human factors. God is the agent without cooperation on the part of man. The intrusion of a humanly decisive factor would nullify the force of the antithesis expressed by the negations, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man”, on the one hand, and by the affirmation, “but of God”, on the other. In the discourse to Nicodemus Jesus says in effect that any intelligent appreciation of, and entrance into, the kingdom of God requires birth from above, birth of water and of the Spirit. He states the reason when He says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). The word “flesh” in this passage may designate simply human nature. It is more probable, however, that it reflects on the ethical and spiritual condition of human nature as dominated and controlled by sin. But whether we take the word “flesh” as designating simply human nature, or as designating human nature controlled by sin, the result is to the same effect. What Jesus says, in either case, is that human nature can never produce anything that transcends the conditions under which human nature finds itself. Like propagates like, and this is a law that holds in the moral and spiritual sphere as well as in the physical. That which is born of human nature is still simply human nature, and since human nature is sinful and corrupt it cannot by any power or law inherent in itself overcome these corrupt and sinful conditions. And not only so, but it is also true that human nature inevitably produces just such human nature. That which is born of the flesh is without fail still flesh. But on the other hand it is just as true that human nature under the dominance and control of the Holy Spirit is human nature born of the Spirit. It is the Spirit alone who can produce it and the Spirit does produce that kind of human nature. This is what our Lord means when He says, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. There are, then, two kinds of birth and each birth conditions with absolute invariableness the character of its product. The natural cannot produce anything but that which is natural, and it does, by an unbreakable law, produce the natural. The supernatural alone originates the supernatural, and the supernatural infallibly secures the supernatural character of its product. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. It is, however, in the verse, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8), that Jesus particularly stresses the sovereignty of God in this supernatural birth. In this verse there is expressed: (1) the invisibility and mysteriousness of the Spirit’s operation, — “thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth”, (2) the irresistibility and efficaciousness of the Spirit’s operation — “The wind blows where it wills”, (3) the sovereignty of the Spirit’s operation — “where it wills”, and (4) the necessary observable fruit — “thou hearest the sound thereof”. Just as we in the realm of physical life do not control the wind so we do not control the Spirit. Just as the wind blows and produces its effects apart from our cooperating will so the Spirit efficaciously and irresistibly produces this effect by His own sovereign volition. It is true that the birth that is from above by the Spirit is always accompanied by the appropriate effects in the heart and life of those who are the subjects of it. They see, and enter into, the kingdom of God. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. But these effects we must remember are after all effects and not predisposing and predetermining causes. This teaching of Scripture is often resisted as fatalistic and tending to promote human sloth and inactivity. But such distortion and abuse arise from failure to appreciate the depth of human depravity, the desperateness of our spiritual condition, and our complete dependence upon God’s grace. When we become aware of our hopeless plight and bow humbly before the counsel of God, then we glory in that efficacious grace which, by reason of the sovereign counsel of His will, has reached down to the lowest depths of our sinful need as it has also extended to the furthest reaches of our guilt. III. The sovereignty of God is exhibited in the free overtures of grace to lost humanity. It is too often thought, and even argued, that the doctrine of sovereign and unconditional election and the doctrine of efficacious regeneration are inconsistent with the free, full and unfettered offer of Christ to lost sinners. That Christ in all the glory of His person and in all the perfection of His work is without reservation presented to men in the gospel and freely offered to them is a truth never to be gainsaid nor withheld. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, Come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17). So we must never place the sovereignty of God in His eternal election nor the sovereignty of God in the actual operations of His grace in a position that will do prejudice to that other aspect of truth. What we find in the teaching of Scripture is that these two truths lie side by side without any suggestion that they are incompatible the one with the other. For example, our Lord said, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me” (John 6:37). This points to the great mystery of the Father’s election and to the committal of the elect to Christ. It points to the certainty that those given to the Son by the Father will in due time believe in the Son. The certainty of their salvation is grounded in the fact that they are elect of the Father and are given by the Father to the Son. But in that same discourse our Lord also said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him”. And again, “No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father” (John 6:44, 65). This shows that men do not and can not come to Christ in faith by the exercise of their own native and natural power. Rather it must be given to them by the Father; they must be drawn by the Father. This drawing can be none other than the efficacious working of His grace in their hearts and minds. So we have the sovereign election of the Father and the sovereign operations of His grace. It is, however, in that very same discourse and in immediate conjunction with these same truths that Jesus says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). In that word there are both assurance and promise. The assurance and promise provide the firmest ground for faith in Christ and the sure warrant that in coming to Him we shall be received. However, there is more than conjunction of those truths in the teaching of Scripture. It is not simply that they lie side by side, not simply that they are integral parts of the whole counsel of God. It is rather that the full and free overtures of Christ in the gospel proceed from the very heart of God’s sovereign election and efficacious grace. It is in pursuance of the Father’s election that Christ came into the world and suffered and died and rose again. Christ’s mission and work as Mediator and Redeemer were the provision of God’s wisdom so that the great purpose of His sovereign love to His own might be fully realised in the glory of His name and in the eternal blessedness of the elect. It is as the Mediator, Redeemer and Saviour, who perfected redemption in pursuance of the Father’s purpose of love, that He is freely offered to sinners in the gospel. In a word, it is the Saviour that sovereign love and grace provided who is proffered so fully and freely. And it is by sovereign grace that He is so freely offered. Sovereign grace is not then incompatible with the free offer of the gospel. It is rather sovereign grace that makes the gospel free. The fount of grace freely offered is grace sovereignly devised and framed. And not only is sovereign grace the fount, but sovereign grace is also the stream on the bosom of which Christ is borne to the very door of our responsibility and opportunity. To change the figure but a little, it is upon the crest of the wave of the divine sovereignty that the full and free overtures of Christ in the gospel break upon the shores of lost humanity. The Sovereignty of God in Human Responsibility Divine sovereignty and human responsibility are often placed in sharp antithesis to each other. It is true that we are not able to comprehend how divine sovereignty as it comes to expression in the absolute foreordination of all events works harmoniously and consistently with the exercise of our responsibility. We have simply to recognise and accept both and believe that divine foreordination embraces our responsibility but does not in the least nullify its reality or exercise. The divine sovereignty, moreover, has a manifoldness of aspect or expression, and the aspect with which we are now mainly concerned is that the sovereignty of God as absolute authority demands total subjection to His will in every sphere and activity of life. If God should require less it would be a denial of Himself and it is His glory that this one thing He cannot do. When man yields less than total subjection this is a denial of God’s supreme Lordship, repudiation of His authority, and contradiction of His glory. It comes, then, to this that the correlate in man of sovereignty in God is subjection wholehearted, undeviating and unceasing. It is the irreducible obligation of all men in all departments of life to bring the whole of life into subservience to the totality of God’s revealed will. The implications of this truth are too frequently overlooked, if not virtually denied, by many Christians. By too many the revelation of God’s will, particularly His will as revealed in Holy Scripture, is regarded as having application merely to the private or, at least, religious relations of men. It is true that we may use the distinction between the private and the public as also the distinction between the religious and the secular. But these distinctions do not in the least imply that the public any more than the private or the secular any more than the religious can ever be removed from the domain of the divine sovereignty. No sphere is independent of religious demands. It is this principle that is asserted in the word of the apostle, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (I Cor. 10:31). And it is expressed in its application to the mediatorial headship of Christ in the word of the same apostle when he describes the Christian warfare as, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II Cor. 10:5). In the discharge of every function and in every detail of that discharge the will of God is supreme and obedience to it the controlling principle. The state, the school, industry, agriculture, science, and art come within the domain of responsibility to God, and therefore the statesman in the discharge of state-craft, the industrialist and mechanic in the promotion of industrial production, the farmer at his plough, the teacher in the school, and the scientist in his laboratory have no less an obligation to apply the revealed will of God to every detail of their respective vocations than the preacher in the pulpit or the mother in the home. It should, of course, be obvious that the scientist in his laboratory is not to discharge the same function as the preacher in the pulpit, nor the legislator the same function as the mother in the home. There are distinct spheres, and one sphere must not trespass upon the prerogatives of another. But all spheres come within one domain — the supreme government of God. And so, in the way appropriate to each sphere and to the full extent of the bearing of the divine will upon it, each sphere must bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. God’s kingdom is over all and Christ’s mediatorial kingdom is over all, too. It is the eternal Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who speaks in the words of the second psalm, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Ps. 2:7, 8). And the sequel to this declaration and investiture is, “Be wise therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him” (vss. 10.12). The goal or aim that the sovereignty of God has set for us is nothing less than complete subordination to, and fulfilment of, the whole will of God in the whole domain of the divine sovereignty, and the domain of the divine sovereignty as it concerns us is life in its broadest extent and minutest detail. It is this goal as the irreducible implication of the divine sovereignty that is epitomised in the prayer our Lord taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). Conclusion These are days when international conflict has taken on staggering proportions. Men’s hearts fail them for fear. Barbaric tyranny has brought its cruel heel upon millions of our fellowmen. In words that Calvin wrote four centuries ago, “the turbulent state of the world deprives us of our judgment”. In such days there is inexpressible comfort in the sovereignty of God. The world has not been abandoned to cold and relentless late, nor has it been given over to the totalitarianism of man or devil. God’s counsel still stands and He still does all His pleasure. It is still true, “Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand” (Isa. 14:24). Through all the disquieting events of our history there runs the sovereign and holy purpose of the Lord God omnipotent. Justice and judgment are the habitation of God’s throne even though clouds and darkness are round about Him. He fulfils His righteous purpose through the unrighteous wills of wicked men. He holds the reins of universal government and not a sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge and ordination. In this let the believer take solace, for it is the secret place of the Most High and the shadow of the Almighty. It is the absolute sovereignty of the eternal God. It is the absolute sovereignty of none other than the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is even with equal universality the mediational sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, the incarnate Son, the Saviour-King, the King of kings and Lord of lords. “Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” (Rev. 19:6). Notes Cf. Oehler, Old Testament Theology, Eng. Trans. Vol. I, pp. 139f. Geerhardus Vos, Old and New Testament Biblical Theology, Philadelphia, 1934, pp. 72-76. Author Born in Sutherland, Scotland in 1898, John Murray was educated at Dornoch Academy and, after service in France in World War I, at the University of Glasgow. A decision to prepare for the Christian ministry took him to Princeton Theological Seminary for three years in 1924. Thereafter, while studying in Edinburgh, he was invited by Caspar Wistar Hodge, Professor of systematic Theology at Princeton, to join him as assistant in 1929. He thus entered directly into the succession of the Hodges and Warfield. On account of the struggle then taking place between historic Christianity and Liberalism in the Presbyterian church in the USA, Princeton Seminary was passing through the greatest upheaval in its history and the outcome was that in 1930 Murray followed Gresham Machen, O.T. Allis and R.D. Wilson to the newly-formed Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. Here he was to teach systematic theology to successive generations of Students until his retirement in 1966. http://www.the-highway.com/